International Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions

11! IACAPAP Association Internationale de Psychiatrie de l'Enfant et de I'Adolescent et des Professions Associees No. XII March 2002

PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

Dear colleagues and friends,

Further to my email in which I had to convey the sad news about Donald's death to you, I would like to give you some additional information about the funeral and the service in his memory.

The service took place on Thursday, October 4th, at the Westville Synagogue. I think there were at least 800 people attending. I was very pleased that many members of the EC were able to be there. The moving talks about Donald were introduced by Senator Joe Lieberman and followed by others, including Donald's two sons, Matthew and Joseph.

Altogether, it was a deeply moving ceremony, and all the speakers designed a very lifelike picture of Donald. I think we all can admire him not only with regard to his scientific and clinical achievements, but also in his attitude towards the coming end of his life. Until the last moment, he continued to work and to care for others. Also, his wife, Phyllis, and his children with whom we are all mourning, must be admired for the way in which they were able to cope with the very sad situation at the funeral and beyond.

Let us stay together and continue Donald's work, his ideas and visions, in order to improve the situation of psychiatrically disturbed and mentally handicapped children and their families all over the world.

Continued on page 3

EDITORS' COMMENTS

This issue of the IACAPAP Bulletin is a special memorial to our wonderful colleague, Donald J. Cohen, M.D., who died at the age of 61 years on October 3,2001. We asked people from around the world to contribute their memories, images, and descriptions of their interactions with Dr. Cohen. We appreciate that we have only included a very small number of remarks and that many have been influenced by Donald Cohen's presence. In keeping with this format, we will include our personal thoughts about Dr. Donald Cohen who had the foresight to support the development of our IACAPAP Bulletin as an important way of communicating to IACAPAP member organizations world-wide.

EDITOR JOCELYN YOSSE HATTAS, M.D. COMMENTS:

It was in August 1982. Al Solnit, who I just met at my first IACAPAP Congress in Dublin, referred me to Professor Donald Cohen to elaborate the feasibility of a visit to the U.S. and a research project. Professor Cohen was on holiday in Jerusalem with his family. We met at the "Gan" coffee shop facing the King David Hotel. His children, Rebecca, Rachel and Joseph, were there, too. That was the beginning of an exceptional friendship.

I received helpful answers to my request. Then the conversation continued on more general topics. What I

Continued on page 4

OBITUARY

DONALD JAY COHEN (1940-2001)

John E. Schowalter, M.D. Yale Child Study Center

New Haven, CT, USA

Donald Cohen, M.D., Yale School of Medicine, Sterling Professor of Child Psychiatry, Pediatrics, and Psychology, died of metastatic ocular melanoma on October 2, 2001, at the age of 61. He was survived by Phyllis, his wife of 37 years; his mother, Rose; his brothers, Avi and Howard; his children, Matthew, Rebecca, Rachel and Joseph; sons-in-law, Andres and Allan; daughter-in-law, Aviva; and grandchildren, Ariela, Gabriela, Hannah, Max and Sarah.

Continued on page 2

Obituary Continued from page one

As a boy, Donald loved knowledge. A family myth is that Donald went up to his room to study at age five and never came down. He was a brilliant high school student and graduated summa cum laude in Philosophy and Psychology from Brandeis University. He spent much of his time in the library at Brandeis, but not so much that he did not meet and woo Phyllis. He won a Fulbright Scholarship and spent a postgraduate year in Cambridge, England to continue his study of philosophy and psychology. Donald had a life-long fascjnation with the philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose focus was on the importance of language in understanding logic, ethics, self and will. When Donald returned to the United States, he matriculated into the Yale School of Medicine. He graduated AOA in 1966. He did his general psychiatry training at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center, and split his child psychiatry training in Boston and Washington, D.C. His two years of federal service were in the Public Health Service as Special Assistant to the Director, Office of Child Development. This was the very exciting time when that Office designed and launched Head Start. While in Washington, Donald also worked in the Section on 1\\1in and Sibling Studies at the National Institute of Mental Health.

Donald came to the Yale Child Study Center (YCSC) and the Yale Department of Child Psychiatry in 1972. Dr. Albert Solnit recruited him to oversee a research expansion into biologic based studies. Donald's first area of interest was autism, to which Tourette's Disorder was soon added. Donald was revolutionary in that he met regularly wi th the parents of children on his research protocols. He would distribute his manuscripts to the parents and ask their questions and criticisms. He called it "participatory research," and he marveled at how much practical input the parents provided him. Donald's first papers on neurotransmitters were published in 1974. He used liquid chromatography in the late 1970s, and published a paper on CT scans of mentally ill children's brains in 1981.

Upon arrival in New Haven, Donald 2 obtained training and certification in

adult and in child psychoanalysis at the Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis. At the time of his death, Donald was a training and supervising analyst and a member of the Education Committee at the Institute.

In 1983, when he became YCSC Director and Departmental Chair, Donald's interests broadened beyond brain and mind function to embrace the community and the world. He facilitated the development of school and homebased services. Donald initiated a joint program with the New Haven Police Department whereby the YCSC train all new police officers about the effects of trauma on children, and YCSC faculty are on-call to the police 24/7 for child emotional trauma emergencies. He turned his attention to recruiting young faculty and to raising money to support them, their laboratories, and their assistants. Being a mentor and an idea maker became Donald's greatest passion. His interest in international child psychiatry began in earnest in the late 1980s and will be documented by another writer.

Donald's CV before his death noted 318 articles, 159 book chapters, four monographs and a dozen books, as author or editor. Besides the standard psychiatric and psychoanalytic venues, he published in Lancet, lAMA, NElM, Science, Child Development, Neurology, Pediatrics and Journal of Pediatrics. Reflecting his deep interest in international mental health, he also published in Japanese, German, Scandinavian, Israeli and French journals. For the latter two, he on occasion wrote in Hebrew and in French. He helped to edit definitive textbooks on pervasive development disorders, and on tic disorders. He also co-edited a book on children's play, and in 2002, there wi II be published a lay person's book, The Yale Companion to Parenting, co-authored with Linda Mayes and myself.

Donald had too many honors to mention. He was on the Board of Trustees of Brandeis University and the Anna Freud Center in London. He won the American Psychiatric Association's Hofheimer Prize, Ittleson Award, and Presidential Commendation. He was on eight editorial boards, including The Journal of the American Academy of child and Adolescent Psychiatry and The American Journal of Psychiatry. He was a member of the Institute of Medicine of

the National Academy of Sciences, a Lifetime Research Awardee of The National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression (NARASAD), and the winner of the National Alliance for Research in Schizophrenia's Ruane Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Childhood and Adolescent Psychiatric Research. Donald's erudition \vas far broader than psychiatry and psychoanalysis. Languages, literature, philosophy, biology, religion, and sociology all were subjects of study. In an extraordinary move in 1996, the Yale University Press selected Donald to be Chairman of its Publications Committee and Vice President of its Board oT Governors. In these positions, he was the single most influential person for selecting which manuscripts from all areas of scholarship would be published.

Donald's skill at fund raising was legendary. He raised many tens of millions of dollars for the Yale Child Study Center, The Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale, and children's mental health initiatives around the world. During the past year, I asked Donald about his talent for fund raiSIng. His first answer was a cliche, but then again, one definition of cliche is that it is a statement so true that it is repeated until boring. Donald said fund raising is easy when you bring together caring people and an excellent idea. His second explanation was more personal and involved his earliest memory. When one psychoanalyst offers to tell a colleague psychoanalyst his earliest memory, that colleague listens-and in my case, I also wrote it down. Donald said his earliest childhood memory was of his father and uncle hovering over the crib of his younger brother, showing him a dollar bill. They had heard that children were born blind and they wanted the boy's first sight to be a good one. They were wise men, since that one act was fabulously successful for both Donald and for his brother, Howard.

Donald's involvement with the International Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions was a central interest during his final decade of life. He believed that healthy, happy children are a major asset for future world peace. All of us have the advantage of standing on Donald's shoulders. The next step is ours.

President.s Message Continued from page one

The world is now full of tensions, fights and wars, and it is my hope that our organization can contribute, at least to some extent, to facilitate peace by helping all those who need the help we are able to give. Let us seize all opportunities to meet and to develop our initiatives along the general goals of our organization.

With kind regards and in friendship.

Helmut Remschmidt, M.D., PhD. President, IACAPAP Dept. of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Philipps University Marburg Hana-Sachs-Strasse 6 0-35033 r.larburg

Tel +49/6421/288260 Fax +49/6421/288975 email:

remschm@post.med.uni-marburg.de

IN MEMORY OF DONALD COHEN

A PERSONAL MESSAGE Helmut Remschmidt, M.D.

I had known Donald already for a long time from his publications, before I had the chance to meet him in person. My first visit to the Yale Child Study Center was in 1976 when I had just been appointed one year before as full professor of child psychiatry and child neurology at the Free liniversity at Berlin. I had asked the dean of the Medical Faculty to support two "scientific journeys" - one through Europe and one through the u.s. and Canada in order to include promising recent developments into my department of child psychiatry and child neurology, which I had to build up.

When I came to the Yale Child Study Center, Donald was not yet there. But I met Al Solnit and Sally Provence who gave me a very warm welcome and showed me all important developments of thIS famous institution. Later, it came to my knowledge that Donald Cohen succeeded Al Solnit, and I was impressed by his research and publications before I first met him in person at the IACAPAP

Congress in Paris in 1986. When we met there, both of us knew about each other, and Donald had already participated in a IACAPAP study group In Senegal before I was elected a member of the Executive Committee (during the Congress in Australia in 1979). Since this first personal meeting in Paris, we came more and more into a scientific contact, and this was also the beginning of a remarkable friendship. Since that time, we met not only in connection with IACAPAP activities (since both of us were members of the EC), but also at congresses outside the scope of IACAPAP. We realized that we shared a lot of interests. As Donald was able to read German (supported by his knowledge of Yiddish), I brought him German books when we met, and he gave me books published in English that had impressed him and that were important sources for his thinking. There were several fields outside our professional interests that were fascinating to both of us. In philosophy, we shared several views about Wittgenstein, especially in relation to the problem of "thinking and language," and in poetry, among others. Paul Celan was one of the poets that both of us liked, and when the biography by John Felstiner on Paul Celan came out, Donald immediately sent me a copy in order to discuss some issues in that book with me at our next meeting.

Perhaps the origin of our families in Ukraine was also one of the things that we had in common: Donald's family emigrated from Ukraine to the United States, and I was born in Czernowitz which is now Ukraine but at the time of my birth, belonged to Romania. We had the plan to go to Czernowitz together some time. This town was very well known to Donald because the first world congress of Yiddish was held there, and I was eager to go there not only because this is my birthplace, but also to find Qut if there are still some traces of the rich cultural tradition in literature that brought forward important poets such as Paul Celan, Rose Auslander, Alfred MargulSperber, Immanuel Weisglass, Alfred Kittner, and many others, less known but also highly creative and influential in German poetry.

With regard to our common scientific interests and activities within IACAPAP, we were together in many

countries, and I have so many good memories of these joint ventures: Paris, Venice and other places in Italy, Kyoto, Porto Alegre (Brazil), Stockholm, Jerusalem, Santiago de Chile, Sharm-ElSheikh, San Francisco, New York, New Haven, and Marburg were places where we met and developed new ideas and initiatives for the future. Donald had farreaching ideas, and I have sometimes the impression that he was so active and so eager to realize his ideas in the near future because he may have had a premonition of his time being limited: The Venice meetings on autism and child mental health services and the Modena meeting on genetics of autism were his ideas. The foundation of the EasternMediterranean Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry was much facilitated by him; the formation of IACAPAP as an umbrella organization for different scientific activities and for the implementation of training was one of his major interests.

In his last letter (dated August 20, 2001) to the members of the IACAPAP Executive Committee, he stated:

"IACAPAP has been a central part of my life for many years. From my very first meeting in Dakar, Senegal, I have felt that the chance to participate in IACAPAP has been one of the wonderful privileges of my career. To have had the chance to serve as President was a true, life-changing privilege. The opportunity to be close to many of you, to be together for wonderful scientific, cultural and social events, to get to know your families and have you become friends of my family, are true gifts. I am sure that IACAPAP will continue to flourish with the commitments from you and those who you'll be bringing into the leadership of our wonderful, international organization.

I hope to be able to join you in person in the future, but I wish to take this chance to express my love and appreciation to all of you for what you have made possible for child psychiatry and for me personally."

As Donald wrote, our friendship was not only related to our professional and private interests, our families were included. I will never forget my last meeting with Donald on May 24-27, 2001, when we discussed future activities

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mailto:remschm@post.med.uni-marburg.de

and when I spent a Sabbath evening with him, his wife, Phyllis, and with three of his children and his grandchildren. Of course, Donald and Phyllis knew about his health situation, but nobody would have expected that only a few months later, he would no longer be among us. At this evening, he was like many of us knew him: energetic, full of ideas, giving comments of great humor, taking care of everyone, and having great pleasure with his grandchildren. I will keep this memory in my mind, and I am prepared and willing to continue his ideas and initiatives according to his example. His death is a great loss for his family, his friends, and international child and adolescent psychiatry, but his work is a large wealth and requires continuation.

Editors' Comments Continued from page one

learned later was that Donald had a great love, immense knowledge of, and commitment to Judaism, Zionism, Israeli societal issues, and child mental health. I was very excited and troubled by the interest this famous Professor paid to our talk. We have had since then hundreds of talks, and frankly, I never fully understood the real reasons of Donald's interest in discussing with me.

He invited me to attend the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Convention in San Francisco in 1983. Claudine, my wife, came with me and she developed with Phyllis, Donald's wife, the same great friendship I myself began to have with Donald. He introduced me to people, to international matters, to be able to differentiate between valuable investment and loss of time, and who to listen to and who not.

We instituted a long-lasting tradition of organizing Chabbat at Congresses. So we did in Washington, in Kyoto, and in Stockholm. In the meantime, Donald and sometimes Phyllis, came frequently to Israel. We spent as much time as possible together, traditionally, for Friday evening Chabbat meal. Donald appreciated very much, as a connoisseur, Claudine's delicious "couscous" and we enjoyed his original

and enriching commentaries on the weekly section of the Torah. We had holidays together. One of the best was to Petra, Jordan, five years ago with Rachel and Alan, Malkiel and Nurit, and Joseph. We spontaneously adapted one to the other, finding the exact dosage of presence and intimacy and of privacy. Donald had this precious skill of openly discussing with anyone he met on his way. Such people could be tourists or Jordanian shopkeepers in Petra. They could be people who sat by him in the bus or on the airplane or a worshiper in the synagogue. He always found a subject of common interest. His interest for people and specifically children, his pure love of all human beings was true and deep.

As he wrote it in his Sterling lecture, "life is with people." For him, that was never a slogan but a way of life.

By chance, I was in Amsterdam when Aviva gave birth to Hanna. Phyllis and Donald were there, too, to be with Matthew and Aviva for their first birth of a grandchild, an event that causes sometimes difficulties and anxiety as well as joy. My unplanned presence with them at this time was a relief for all of us. We went together from Leiden to a little synagogue in Amsterdam that Donald found, who knows howl We went to give Hanna her name on Chabbat. We had a long walk and discussion in the park about Matthew's home in Leiden. We really felt as one family.

In 1999, Aviva and Matthew had Seder Pessah with us for shared enjoyment. Joseph stayed with us several times when he was in Jerusalem. I have stayed at Phyllis's and Donald's home many times. This closeness culminated when we spent holidays, both couples together at Somesville near Bar Harbor, Maine, sharing a two bedroom little house for two weeks, living together. Holidays, according to Donald's definition of it, is learning all the day long, human genetics this time, taking rest on evenings and Sunday, and touring this wonderful countryside. Phyllis and Claudine had plenty of time for shopping and cruising and touring. We were so satisfied by having these holidays together that we planned to go together to Hawaii for the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry convention and share again a little house and enjoy the country.

I could evoke so many great, mov

ing, serious, sad, exciting, moments with Donald and his wonderful family. Joseph's Bar Mitzvah in Jerusalem, Rebecca's and Andre's wedding in Westville, long walks in Woodbridge forest around their house, stopping at Martin's on the way to the Child Study Center for a big hug to Max, Ariella, and Gabriella. Donald was so proud to be their grandfather. He was so grateful to Max, who gave him the highest promotion he ever got: Grandfatherhoodl The trip to Psagot to visit Yael, Noam, and their kids-he loved being there. He spoke about renting a little flat in Psagot to be with all these "so healthy and wonderful children," of going to Bethlehem in the night, of the visit to Herodion and Efrat, of missing the right road, (before the Intifadal), of teaching Aviel how to think rightly and find his way in life when he spent Chabbat with them, of the penthouse at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, of sharing a room in Washington, of the Beit Gavriel conferences and discussing the topic he suggested and that was so important to him. "Do we know what we do and do we do what we know?l" He was active in the site visits to Israel as a preparation of the Jerusalem 2000 Millennium Congress. He invested so much in its creation, organization, and also politically, scientifically, and affectively. And there is so much more. The numerous emails, sharing thoughts, commenting on events, professional or political, private subjects, and reporting on the children.

Donald was an expert in communication. I learned to understand exactly his idiosyncratic vocabulary including silences and more important what is expressed between the lines. We developed our own way to communicate. Short sentences, right to the point, skipping to the next topic if there is no answer. Aware of these close relations, some Israelis asked me, as if I was the private secretary of the Rebbe, to bring their request to Professor Cohen. Donald knew only those I brought to him! knew not to insist if he politely asked me another question. Professionally, he made a tremendous change in my career, giving me another sense of responsibilities and capacities. I just regret and apologize to him that I am not the researcher he wanted me to be. He helped us considerably in Eitanim; that's only one of the arguments for naming our 4

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"Jerusalem Comprehensive Therapeutic Center" at Eitanim-Kfar Shaul Mental Health Center, after his name.

All these personal memories are the best description and evocation of who was Donald Cohen. Being this same genius who brought the \vorld child mental health to its highest level and achievement. Most people will know and will remember, and also so simple, so humble, so friendly, so familiar, spontaneous, joking, laughing with a very personal melody, never expressing any kind of superiority or contempt over others. All along our numerous shmusses or discussions, we never dealt with slander, lachon Haraa.

It was on Chabbat noon, in Modena, during the IACAPAP meeting on Autism. We had a light lunch together, and we first spoke about his eye. He comforted me. "It's over...probably!" It was three years ago.

In September 2000, one month after our holidays in Maine, Donald phoned us. "I have a cancer in my liver." We were astonished, shocked, I asked him again, "yes, me, Donald Cohen, I have a cancer." Check it again, ask for a second opinion, who knows?! It was. All the year long, we lived in fears and hopes. He comforted us. Till the last moments as our mentor, friend, brother, Rebbe, he taught us the highest values of life, of courage, of wisdom, of humanity, of Jewishness.

For Claudine and me, for our children, for our grandchildren he loved so much and they loved him so much also, Donald is always present with us, is part of our family as we feel a part of his and Phyllis's family. And so we will stay together forever, Donald's spirit with us and inside of us.

Jocelyn Yosse Hattab, M.D. Child, Adolescent and Adult

Psychiatrist, Psychoanalyst Director Donald Cohen Jerusalem

Comprehensive Therapeutic Center For Children and Adolescents

Eitanim-Kfar Shaul Mental Health Center

D.N. Tsfon Yehuda - 90972 Jerusalem ISRAEL TeleFax +972 2 5340024 email: jocelyn@vms.huji.ac.il

EDITOR CYNTHIA R. PFEFFER, M.D. COMMENTS:

The world has been shaken for us personally, professionally, intellectually, and in still unknown ways. When Donald Cohen passed away, I felt a deep sense of grief, loss, and need to reassess my orientation to many professional activities. I truly felt that an icon is no longer with us, to lead, to advise, to support, to create, to lift our spirits when times are complex, to provide us with special activities and opportunities. In my opinion, he helped unify the world of child and adolescent psychiatry. He was unusually gifted in understanding human concerns, aspirations, and needs. He was steady in his approach to work things out, always with combined humor, incisiveness, sensitivity, humility, empathy, flexibility. He had many wonderful goals for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. The Yale Child Study Center, under his leadership, became the locus for international learning, teaching, research, and social advocacy. It was a hub that all in IACAPAP knew, respected, supported, and visited, when possible. Donald Cohen was young at heart, yet he was mature, wise, energetic, with a vision of how to accomplish complex goals. He was a profound human being who was a model of family commitment, professional accomplishment, and social directiveness. He was a genius, a man of numerous facets, a person who was tireless in his desire to communicate and interact. He was truly an intellectual who understood political necessities to advance important causes. We were very willing to follow his leads. He gave us special insights, opportunities for our own growth, and a sense of belonging and personal satisfaction and accomplishment. He is one of the people who has been exceptionally special for me. His memory will be with me forever.

I had known and followed Donald's scientific work for many years before having the opportunity to directly work with him on IACAPAP activities which began at the San Francisco meeting. There, he asked me and Yosse Hattab to work together as coeditors of the IACAPAP Newsletter. I was honored to be given this opportunity to exercise creativity and plan the goals of this

Newsletter as a strong communication modality of our international association. This began for me a very energizing, unique, and cherished experience as a closer colleague of Donald Cohen.

I remember with awe the stupendous introduction that Donald was given as the new President of IACAPAP at that meeting by Al Solnit, his mentor and predecessor as the Director of the Yale Child Study Center. Al Solnit's introduction of Donald was very revealing for me of Donald's deep commitments and interests in human interactions, child development, the integration of psychoanalysis and biological child and adolescent psychiatry, of his talents in diagnosis and interviewing, of his wisdom as a leader of complex organizations, of his determination to enhance other's productivity, of his deep concern for social values and welfare, and of his intense involvement with family. In fact, in our conversation about the Newsletter, we realized that we immediately needed a competent and enthusiastic reporter for this meeting in San Francisco. We chose Joseph, Donald's teenage son, to be our first junior reporter. And he did a fine job of reporting on all aspects of our meeting that year! This stimulated the continuation of student participation in columns written by students about their experiences and perceptions. They are the future of IACAPAP.

I quickly began to realize that I had a personal responsibility to make the publication of the Newsletter successful and a special aspect of our organization. It is a pleasure to work with Yosse, and of course, to share Donald stories together. Apersonal confession is that I wanted to make our Newsletter a pride for Donald as the leader of our organization. While I felt that our work on the Newsletter was our own undertaking, I also often felt that the efforts were carried out were concordant with Donald's spirit and his recognition of the necessity of bringing the world together in peace and for the advancement of children's causes. In this regard, I made sure that every issue of the Newsletter included the opinions of the organization's leaders, but also of students and colleagues throughout the world. Yosse and I strove to embody, in the Newsletter, the values of world harmony, learning, collegiality with an aggressive and committed voice of the 5

mailto:jocelyn@vms.huji.ac.il

need to help children, whomever they were and wherever they lived. These concepts were what Donald worked so vigorously to promote.

Working with Donald was an intense experience that combined a sense of ease of attaining goals with hard work conducted with the input from meetings with many colleagues. Often I found myself thinking about the atmosphere of our meetings-friendship, purpose, intelligent interactions, solving problems, decreasing barriers, listening to new ideas, synthesizing an array of opinions, and when a solution appeared less apparent, a sense that Donald would solve the riddle for us. The meetings were conducted with respect for others' contributions, an atmosphere that often seemed like a unique occasion, in contrast to the nature of issues we were discussing-child's suffering through lack of basic survival needs, war, migration, physical and mental illness. I felt that certainly through Donald's style of leadership, we would achieve many of our goals to enhance children's lives and to give them a childhood as their basic right.

During Donald's presidency, our organization advanced in bringing our member societies together. Typical of Donald but among his unique contributions was the fruition of a Middle Eastern society of child psychiatry that brought together colleagues from countries in great need of child psychiatric input and collaboration. It was a treat to see Donald interact with these colleagues and excite them to plan meetings even when their own governments were not quite ready for such free interchange. Yes, I think that had Donald had more of a chance to promote these meetings, some of the strife in the world between countries may have been lessened.

On a more personal note, Donald will always be a special person for me. His ways combined the intellect, grace, scholarship, and great leadership fitting of the most elegant king with humility, unpretentiousness, and generosity. The honor to know him, to work with him, to struggle with him over complicated concerns; and to succeed with him is a legacy he has left for me as well as others. I have been enriched to have known him. I continue to value working with our IACAPAP colleagues to carry on ideals he cherished. I am always pleased to contin

ue my interactions with his wife, Phyllis, whose friendship I greatly value.

Our Newsletter has expanded in many directions and is now a Bulletin, connoting the advances we have made in IACAPAP during Donald's time as our leader. These are lasting.

This special issue is a token to the great respect, pleasure, and special experiences we had in our interactions with Donald and the infinite appreciation we have for his work with us - as we remember Donald J. Cohen

Cynthia R. Pfeffer, M.D. New York Presbyterian

Hospital-Westchester Weill Medical College of

Cornell University 21 Bloomingdale Road White Plains, New York 10605 Tel: 914-997-5849 Fax: 914-997-8685 email: cpfeffer@med.comell.edu

DONALD J. COHEN, M.D. MEMORIAL NOTE:

Myron L. Belfer, MD

I am writing this note now several months after Donald's death and the difficulty of coming to grips with it remains. Hardly a day goes by when I do not think of Donald. He was a presencea security blanket if you wish. In Winnicott's terms, I think he provided a holding environment for so many of us (as was stated at his funeral). His loss leaves me to reflect on where I have been, where I can and should go, and how in some small way I could fulfill the aspirations Donald held for all of us.

I was privileged to know Donald since our years together as trainees, and when we were much younger with small children. Donald and Phyllis were always able to set a standard for caring and nurturing that one could only marvel at. The children's stories written and illustrated by Donald were fantastic! Not the first or only great piece of writing by Donald, but certainly among the most enduring in my memory.

As our careers progressed, there was never a sense of competitiveness. Donald knew and knows no peer in our field. He

was always generous, opening up possibilities, and offering encouragement. He was supportive at all turns-even at times when it was probably not warranted. lowe my current opportunity at the World Health Organization to the vision and support of Donald.

It is in this role that I hope to deliver in some way to support the ideals of Donald and to help make a better world for children in his image.

When I think of Donald these days, there are so many persistent unique images-eating nuts, nibbling at babka, enjoying an impossible negotiation, gently but insistently moving an idea-he was at home in so many worlds! When a person does so much good for so many and leads a dedicated life, there should be at least the measure of four score. Donald's death just seems so unfair!

DONALD J. COHEN, A TRIBUTE Per-Anders Rydelius, M.D., Ph.D.

Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

Chairman, Director of the Department of Women and Child Health

Karolinska Institutet Stockholm, Sweden

Returning to Sweden after the 11th IACAPAP congress in 1986 and in Paris, Kari Schleimer, at that time the scientific secretary of the Swedish association for child and adolescent psychiatry and myself (being the president of the Swedish association) decided to invite IACAPAP to arrange the 1994 IACAPAP Congress in Stockholm, Sweden.

Although the 13th congress in 1994 was not arranged in Stockholm but in San Francisco, this letter gave me the opportunity to learn to know Donald Cohen and to benefit from a more than ten year friendship and cooperation with him.

We did really meet in a cosmopolitan way, the very first time in Japan in 1990 and then in Hungary, Sweden, Italy, US, the Netherlands, Egypt. etc. From 1994 to 1998, when planning for the Stockholm congress we regularly weekly, and some periods even daily, e-mailed, wrote letters, spoke to each other over the telephone or met.

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The very last time we were seeing each other was in 2000, in Sharm el Sheik in Sinai, when Donald very skilled and successfully succeeded in bringing child and adolescent psychiatrists and members from the allied professions to a true "ecumenical" meeting when professionals from different ethnic groups, religions' cultures and nationalities came together planning for collaboration and scientific challenges breaking boarders.

There are some other special memories to be mentioned. When it was decided that Sweden was to arrange the 14th IACAPAP congress in 1998, Donald, as the IACAPAP president, visited Stockholm in 1995, together with Kosuke Yamasaki, the secretary general, and John Sikorski, responsible for the San Francisco in 1994. We spent some adventures and some most stimulating days together when planning for coming events. We visited different Stockholm facilities, were invited by the Stockholm Mayor for sherry in his office and a tour through the Stockholm City Hall, where Donald could take the rostrum from where the speeches are delivered during the Nobel dinners. We visited all the good Stockholm hotel-Suites, and went by train and subway to estimate transportation time to different congress locations.

At Karolinska Institutet there is a possibility to arrange "Nobel Symposia," scientific symposia aiming to discuss areas and opinions of current interest. In 1996, such a Nobel symposium was arranged to celebrate the 150th Anniversary of the establishment of the Pediatric department at the Karolinska Institute, and the very first chair in Pediatrics in the world. Donald was invited and delivered a most distinguished and appreciated presentation of the Tourette's Syndrome as a model to understand neuropsychiatric disorders in childhood. The presentation was printed in a Nobel Symposium supplement in Acta Paediatrica (Vol 86, Suppl 422: 1977:106 - Ill) also linking Donald to the true roots of the Swedish child and adolescent psychiatry. Acta Paediatrica, one of the oldest paediatric journals, was founded by Isak Jundel!, Professor of Pediatrics, called "The children's Friend," who, in 1915, promoted child and adolescent psychiatry to be established as a discipline of its own in Sweden and at the time for World War I opened our child and adolescent psychi

atric department. Since the 1930s, Swedish research in child and adolescent psychiatry has mainly been presented in that journal.

I am extremely sad that the International Child and Adolescent Psychiatry lost one of its most important and distinguished scientists and a true promoter of improving child and adolescent mental health. I am feeling both proud and honoured to have had the chance to learn to know Donald, to learn from him and to share from his rich personality, sense of humour and creativity.

VISION AND IDENTITY

MEMORY AND INVENTION:

REMEMBERING DONALD J. COHEN (1940-2001)

James F. Leckman, M.D.

New Haven

Since his passing, much has been said and written about Donald and his unique contributions to our field. More is in the works. In June of this year, Yale University will host a series of lectures and seminars to celebrate Donald's life and on June 19th, the new auditorium at the Child Study Center will be named in his honor. Working closely with mem

bers of his family and his colleagues, Yale University Press is preparing to publish an annotated collection of his scientific publications. And with any luck, there soon will be one or more Donald J. Cohen professorships to fill. Beyond New Haven, programs and services are being named in his honor, and an impressive set of obituaries in prominent scientific journals will shortly appear.

How else might we remember Donald? My thoughts turn to the work of Sir Frederic Bartlett (1969-1985), the famous Cambridge psychologist and his notion that "Remembering is not the reexcitation of innumerable fixed, lifeless, and fragmentary traces. It is an imaginative reconstruction... ;" to the Nobel Laureate Gerald M. Edelman's assertion that "Every act of memory is an act of the imagination;" and to Sigmund Freud's concept of Nachtraglichkeit-a term he used to describe how memories are often

revised to fit in with new experiences of with the attainment of a new state of development. So, I would propose that, as a field, we have reached a new stage of development-one that was so well exemplified by Donald.

As a field, we need to re-invent our identity by acknowledging the special needs of children and embracing, as ours, the vast expanse of emerging knowledge from genetics and developmental neurobiology, from child development and in vivo neuroimaging studies to advances in pediatric psychopharmacology and other evidencebased interventions. We need to realize that one way to ensure in~egration and progress is to establish more interdisciplinary training programs and to do what pediatrics did earlier this century by stepping out from behind the shadow of internal medicine and becoming its own discipline.

In the U.S., this would mean allowing medical students to move directly into child psychiatry programs and establishing four-year child psychiatric residencies and research training programs that could be coherently shaped to do justice to our basic sciences and our efficacious interventions. As Abraham Jacobi (1830-1919), one of the founders of American pediatrics said, "Pediatrics does not deal with miniature men and women, with reduced doses and the same class of diseases in smaller bodies, but ... it has its own independent range and horizon ..." The same is true of our discipline.

This is not the first time such an idea has been articulated. But we know much more today than when our organization was founded in 1948. The relevant scientific horizons are lofty and stretch deep into the complexities of development, gene regulation, the potency of early environments-especially those created by caring parents. Although much of this terrain is unexplored, the tools for this exploration are at hand and capacity-building efforts should be among our first priorities.

As we follow in the footsteps of pioneers like Donald Cohen, we must not lose sight of our ultimate goal-to foster resilience and positive developmental outcomes. Advances in genetics, neuroimaging, neuropsychopharmacology

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and behavioral research will, no doubt, enhance our therapeutic options. But helping a child regain the momentum of normal development also means building on the child's strengths and special interests within secure homes and communities. This, too, was part of Donald's vision-from genes to neighborhoods.

Let us constructively remember the life of this remarkable visionary by redoubling our efforts-moment by moment-to improve the lives of children in the years to come, and who knows? We might re-invent our discipline in the process.

FOR MY GUIDE AND FRIEND,

DONALD J. COHEN Linda C. Mayes, M.D.

Donald Cohen was my intellectual mentor, a close working colleague, and most of all, my friend. He was my surest guide in many matters of life-those of head and heart, soul and mind, of living between the profane and the sacred. Donald's generosity to me was repeated many times over with so many of us. He had the capacity to hold all of us in mind at the same time and yet maintain unique relationships with each of us. His engagement with us shaped our scientific biographies, and we are all better scholars and clinicians for his humane, collegial hand in our beginnings and our maturation. Donald brought us together as a community of scholars committed to the shared pursuit of knowledge and to honoring mentorship of our students just as Donald mentored us. He always said we needed to make it possible for our students to internalize us. With Donald as a mentor, this was a remarkably easy task.

Donald and my friendship grew from many shared interests and collaborations, but I shall always be most grateful to him for his showing me how to be a scientist-clinician and for fostering my interests in psychoanalysis at the same time he nurtured my scientific career. Shortly after I joined the Center's faculty in 1985, Donald and I began coming together to think about some of the most basic questions of young children's

developing internal mental lives and about psychodynamic perspectives on children's development. I'm not really quite sure what set this is motion, save it began around a chapter he had been invited to write on the concept of "constitution" in psychoanalysis. He said he needed help but truthfully, I think his inviting me to join him was his way of helping me find my own voice.

We developed then what evolved into our collaborative style. Long discussions, each of us thinking and spinning ideas. I would write, he would add or subtract, more long discussions. He always had far more energy and could sustain the thread for many more hours than I. But in those meetings, we would often range far from the topic at hand and work on whatever seemed uppermost in our minds at the time. We sometimes moved at a dizzying rate back and forth from the most philosophical to the most mundane. It took me a while to get used to and confident in our working style. At first I felt like I was a beginner trying to get on paper some reasonably close semblance of what we-or in the beginning, mostly he-had talked about. I despaired at being able to keep us, especially when in his excitement, he would assure me that all of what we had talked about could be written in only an hour, at most two. I tried to put into action nearly every research idea we came up with but soon realized that this was not only not possible but not the intent of our method of working. Donald taught me that good ideas, good questions that emerge over and over will eventually take hold in studies, but they need to gain shape and weight in repeated melding. He taught me to play with perspectives kept apart only for the comfort of simplicity and safety. He helped me appreciate that there is an inevitable and necessary tension between the empirical, the rigorous science of measurement, and accepting the sometimes unknowable complexity of what it means to be human. This tension is not resolvable indeed it is only at our peril to try to do so for once we feel it resolved, we have compromised too much in one way or the other. We have accepted either that there are certain phenomena beyond our capacities to try to understand better or that any phenomena not measurable

should be discounted. Gradually, as my own voice grew

stronger, we were really working as full and equal collaborators. I put down my pen and note pad save only occasionally to jot down a phrase, and we began simply to talk, pull from our clinical observations, our research date, and our individual lives and our friendship. We were able to pick up our discussions at any time and any place. We would take a walk around the block, to lunch, or just down the hall-our simply catching the moment brought liveliness to our thinking together that I miss every day. I still walk by his office to see if we can find a few minutes to pick up the thread from our last conversation. We had so many projects in our heads and so many unfinished on the editing tables.

Indeed, when Donald and I wrote together, we were never quite finished. One project always led to another. It took me a long time to understand that what we wrote today would be old by tomorrow, and if we were living the urgently inquiring life we were writing about, our current certainties would soon be our new doubts. One project manifestly finished really signals the beginning of another. And so our writing projects together remain unfinished, we still talk in my memory, and we are still planning the next idea-always evolving in the same way one research question leads to another, readers add their own interpretations to a paper, and a student takes steps beyond a teacher. In the fullness of our relationship, Donald passes on his highest values in the shared pursuit of understanding wherever it may lead. All of us who were his colleagues and friends celebrate his enduring presence in our lives. Even as we mourn his death and miss his energetic leadership, we also do exactly what he would urge us to docelebrate life, pursue our science, care for children and their families, and give of ourselves to our younger colleagues just beginning their careers as clinicianscientists. Friendships so suffused sustain us through the unexpectancies of life and grant us the solace of never-ending wonder.

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DONALD COHEN: A TRIBUTE

Theodore Shapiro, M.D. Professor Emeritus

Weill Medical College of Cornell University

There are few within our profession who attain distinction in all areas as a researcher or educator or clinician and also have international stature and are called upon by the heads of state for advice in public policy. Donald Cohen's career is marked by excellence in all the areas mentioned, and he stands almost alone at the pinnacle of leaders in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. He was productive across our sub-disciplines, and he was a willing and gracious mentor to so many. If we use the Ericksonian achievement of generativity, Donald achieved that level of maturity even as he contributed to the store of new knowledge he derived from his research and the wisdom he employed in his clinical consultations with children and adolescents. Indeed he consulted with families whose children bore disturbances across the diagnostic range, from autism and Tourette's Syndrome to the disorders that derive from the interplay of soma and psyche in developmental and adult psychopathology.

Donald once told me of his early curiosity and explorations. He was a truly curious man whose investigations were born out of a wish to know. His bench and clinical research \vere complemented by his psychoanalytic studies where he sought the connections between conflict and psychic representation that occur in various deviant developmental trajectories. In all these studies, he offered younger and novice investigators collaborative roles as they entered the research arena. His interests also were tailored by the students about him who offered access to study opportunities. The Scud missile crisis in Israel offered a unique cooperative effort in which he could lend his imagination too and led to further cooperation with English colleagues. The interplay of organic symptoms and ego development in the social adaptation of those with Tourette's

Syndrome was yet another arena in which is wide-ranging intellect led to new knowledge.

If that were all that Donald has left as a legacy, as the Passover refrain goes, it would have sufficed. However, Donald also was a leader for all of psychiatry and humanity, and an academically concerned administrator in his role as Director of The Yale Child Study Center. There he created a true and open university, a place of learning. During his tenure he fostered programs for the study of molecular biology and psychotherapy research as well as clinical research in pervasive developmental disorders and models for social control of conduct disorders through a collaborative effort between mental health personnel and the New Haven Police. While doing all that, he raised funds for endowed Chairs and for research, and he made sure that his faculty were well rounded and t.utored in their exposures by encouraging psychoanalytic training along with their instruction in the tools and methods of clinical and research inquiry. Not the least of his accomplishments was his support and participation in one of the best educational programs in the world designed for medical students and resident and Child and Adolescent residents at the Yale College of Medicine.

I knew Donald only after he arrived in New Haven as a young Assistant Professor. He always was forthright and forthcoming, curious and able to listen. He impressed all as a "comer," and that was indeed the case. He rose quickly and all were impressed by his talents and industry as well as his enthusiasm for learning and knowledge. When Al Solnit was ready to give up his post as Director of the Yale Child Study Center, there was no question that Donald was to be chosen. His career flourished as I have recounted, and he leaves a magnificent legacy to us all. He lives on in the corpus of work described and in the work of many whom he taught. Donald was a rare event in the history of Medicine.

THE GARDENER AND THE DINOSAUR:

REMEMBERING ZAYDE

Andres Martin Yale Child Study Center

New Haven

Between griefand nothing, I will take grief.

William Faulkner: The Wild Palms

At a recent, but not likely final count, Dr. Donald J. Cohen, Sterling Professor of Child Psychiatry, Psychology and Pediatrics, and Director of the Yale Child Study Center since 1983, had 493 publications credited to his name. Under this impressive statistic are subsumed wellknown and widely read and cited seminal contributions and standard textbooks in the fields of autism, Tourette's syndrome, and developmental psychopathology. Not included in his glow-in-the-dark curriculum, however, and in fact unknown until only very recently, is Donald's very first published piece. On the occasion of receiving the Lifetime Award for Research on Autism from the International Meeting for Autism Research (MFAR), Donald himself rediscovered the haiku-like, two-sentence debut of his meteoric career.

Even at age eight, I was curious about relationships and thought about thinking, especially how we think about each other. This was the context of my first formal interview. Michael and I often went to the Garfield Park Conservatory, a wonderful institution available to youngsters in Chicago. We would wander through the rooms filled with tall tropical trees and exotic flowers, taking in the beauty and misty, musty smells. I became especially aware ofone man who would always be standing quietly and watering the plants; he patiently did his job with a sense ofcalm and a gentle smile. For the newspaper, I thought he would be the ideal person to interview, and he consented. The interview was then published in our school newspaper and constitutes one of the earlier reports, though less widely circulated than that ofKanner and Asperger, on the central phenomena that still intrigue our field.

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Let me quote the full article, published in 1948, at this time as an historic, pioneering study and the documentation of the launching of a lifetime career in autism research. This is the verbatim interview: ((/ was a shy and frail child. Therefore / decided to become a gardener. " This early report on a socially dysfunctional adult identifies constitutional factors, shyness, and possible biological correlates, frailty, with long-term prognosis in a career that was socially isolated: the gardener represents an optimistic adaptation to an underlying disability in social orientation.

By the time that this last lecture was delivered and this last honor bestowed on him, Donald had passed away. Months before, he had known that his end was imminent and had planned accordingly: already quite weak and frail, he had nevertheless ensured that his speech would be conveyed not only with the incomparable clarity and depth of his thinking, but with the singular magic of his presence as well. It was on September 5th, the very date of his sixty-first and final birthday that he had come in to the Center to record for an audience of one-consisting of an unsuspecting videographer-the words that would be delivered at a packed San Diego auditorium less than two months later. But his preparations had long been under way and gone much further and deeper than just ensuring the mechanics of delivering a speech that he could not attend to in person.

An example of such foresight is the Preface that Donald had written two years before for Grace Christ's book, The Legacy: Children Surviving the Death of a Parent from Cancer. In it, he describes the roadmap and priorities that he had set for himself for his final days. The central concern, entirely true to his lifelong quest and devotion-in the professional as much as in the famIlial spheres-was in the primacy of relationships and connectedness.

Cancer is a family affair: to be diagnosed as having cancer immediately is to reinforce one's roles-obligations and hopes-among those one loves and is loved by. These relations become hypercathected-they become more charged, meaningful, precious-as time becomes more precious. For those for whom the

new and improved treatments have failed, who are now face to face with the Angel of Death, the entire meaning of their lives and of their last days will be measured by these relationships which they, and those around them, will try to make as ideal as possible.

In his Memoriam to a Scientist and Visionary in Service of the World, Jim Leckman has succinctly pointed out that Donald's "life was his treatise." This truest of statements and highest of praises becomes poignantly evident at another point of the Legacy's Preface, in which Donald opts for the intimate "you"almost interchangeable with his own "me"- over the formality and distance that he more traditionally serious academic introduction would call for.

A parent's first thoughts are not with his or her own fate, or not only that. Quickly, it is with the fate of [... ] infants and children who need you as the very source of their own lives, with older children whose weddings you will miss, with grandchildren who you will not see at confirmation and bar mitzvah.

That missed bar mitzvah had a painful immediacy for the two of usone that was unspoken as much as it was mutually acknowledged. As some know, and others will now learn, my son, Max, is Donald's first (of five) grandchildren. As his older son, Matthew stated in his beautiful eulogy at his father's funeral, "The unfulfilled desire to see Max's bar mitzvah as much as Joe's (his younger son's) wedding sustained him through his last years as twin beacons of hope." Donald's bonds with all his grandchildren were an intense and beautiful sight to behold. Zayde (that warm-toned Yiddish term for grandfather that he was only known by to them) was not only a regular presence at our home, he was and will always be the very alloy that legend is made out of.

The December 14, 2001 issue of the Yale Bulletin & Calendar holds a special place in my heart. Smack on top center of its page 11 is "Dinosaur" by 4-3/4 year old Max Martin. The drawing is taken from the 2002 Calendar put together by his nursery class (my other personal favorite entry: "Girl with a bad case of the stripes," by Hannah State). Max's dinosaur is gifted with 15 legs, a snakelike tail that hangs from its house-wor

thy body, and a neck donned with three large scales that seem to flutter in the wind: I am one proud papa, as can be quite naturally anticipated.

What seems odd and unexpected, though, is the feeling of deja vu-of something VUe This first publication (and at age 4-3/4 no less, almost half the record set by the master himself), this dinosaur of his, some grandiosity-by-proxy seems to tell me, will be to Max what that gardener turned out to be for Zayde: the keystone, the primordial referent. And then I awake from such daydreams. While it is true that my Max may still grow up to become one of the world's preeminent paleontologists, and that he may go on to wistfully open his magisterial lectures with a PowerPoint slide of this first scientific love of his, that is not what this is about.

My life has been blessed and deeply enhanced by knowing and becoming close to Donald for the past seven years. But the gifts that I have received from Zayde, just as my grief for him today, pale in comparison to those of the onessuch as my dear wife Rebecca-who were fortunate to know him the best and longest. To the many who will go on not having known him (and to a certain extent, his five grandchildren will by default fall into this category), it will be incumbent upon us to make his presence felt and to fulfill his final prayer of remembering him in our "open, warm, unbounded expression of love and concern for one another." The task will not be fundamentally different in the professional realm, with our work, energy and creativity collegially put in the service of improving children's life everywhere as the best embodiment of his legacy. Like Max, some of you got to know him for too brief a time. Countless others, who did not know him at all, have and will continue to be touched by his life and work. Those of us who did know him will naturally bear the privileged responsibility of ensuring the transmission of his values and vision. Faced with the alternative of naught, we will gladly turn today's grief into tomorrow's hope. That is what this is all about.

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A VERY SPECIAL REMEMBRANCE

Robert A King, M.D. Yale Child Study Center

I first met Donald 40 years ago at a Chicago Public Library table where he was reading Discartes ' treatise on physiology. Over the years, \ve grew close as friends, reclaimed family, and colleagues. That accidental meeting long ago has stuck with me as emblematic of Donald's immense erudition; his ambition to understand the unity of mind, body, and soul; and his deep capacity to forge lifetime friendships wherever he went.

Donald might have had many careers: rabbi, philosopher, university president -perhaps even standup comic to name a few. However, it was his chosen calling as physician, child psychiatrist, and psychoanalyst that brought together his powerful intelligence, the breadth of his human understanding, and his passion for tikkun o/am-the repair of the world.

He stood across our field like a giant-from the first child psychiatric applications of modern neurobiological methods, to partnerships with the public schools and the police, to mentoring generations of researchers and clinicians' to shaping national child policy. The Child Study Center remains as a monument to his passion and tireless energy.

Donald's productivity was virtually limitless. In the sphere of work, he was without ambivalences. Whatsoever he set his hand to do, he did with all his heart and all his might. His seemingly tireless energy inspired both admiration and en\')'. I thi nk one of the secrets of his success. ho\\'ever. \\'as that. for Donald, it was never \\'ork. \\'i th all the connotations of friction or internal resistance to be overcome; for him, it \vas his passion and his joy.

Despite his enormous intellectual creativity, what was most impressive of all was Donald's lev meveen - his wise heart. He was intensely interested in the ties that made us human - the attachments of family, friendship, community, tradition - the bonds of love, and even of hate.

Donald saw medicine as conferring the privilege and responsibility of being present and trying to help at the great

mysteries of life - birth, death, physical suffering, mental anguish. To see Donald conduct an interview was a deeply moving experience; he conveyed the conviction that every human life was like a great novel - a rich, compelling narrative, if one but knew how to read it. His capacity to connect transcended age, class, and ethnicity. People would tell Donald things they had never told anyone else, things they had never even told themselves in words. He stayed in touch with patients, friends, students - literally for decades.

In these past days, it has been astonishing to see the number of people, each one of whom believed - quite correctly that he or she had a special, close, unique relationship with Donald.

It was also Donald's delight to build connections, putting people he knew in touch with each other and serving as shadcen, as matchmaker, to scores of friendships, scientific collaborations, and marriages.

In the last decade, Donald's scope and vision grew even larger. As President of the International Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions, he traveled around the world: Italy, Korea, Germany, Uruguay, Gaza, Brazil, Egypt, leaving a wake of ever more friends, colleagues, and students. He saw concern for the world's children and THE one great force for peace - that regardless of politics or nationality, all parents wanted their children to grow up healthy and secure and could find common cause in that endeavor.

Israel had a special place in Donald's heart and there, too, he launched the field of scientific child psychiatry, built institutions and collaborations, and trained a whole generation of young clinical researchers.

It was in mentorship, given and received, that Donald truly excelled. He sought out teachers from whom he could learn - here in New Haven, Al Solnit, Ed Zigler, Sam Ritvo, Hans Leowald, Jay Katz, and others. In turn, he taught us to focus not on what colleagues or patients did badly at, but how to help them to find that at which they could excel.

In all this, there was nothing Pollyannaish; Donald knew keenly his own and others' shortcomings. He also knew a great deal about the vicissitudes of aggression, pride, competitiveness,

both theoretically and in person. Yet, he firmly believed that, combined with Eros, these were also essential wellsprings of our vitality.

Donald saw the shape and potential of many of our lives and vvork more clearly than we could ourselves. His capacity to idealize family, students, colleagues, and teachers helped us to grow into that vision of who we might become. In all of us, he brought out the urge to treat ourselves both more seriously and more kindly. We all have unfinished conversations with him that will go on and on inside of us for the rest of our lives.

Thank you, Donald, so very much for all that you gave us and for the gift of having known you. Modeh""ani.

A SPECIAL COLLEAGUE: THE INSIGHTS TO CREATE

Amira Seif EI Din, M.D.

These are some of my impressions and feelings about Donald. On the scientific level, Donald had a very wide vision. I deeply felt that he could be an excellent politician, as when he was able to let Israeli and Palestinian psychiatrists work together for the Jerusalem Congress as one team which was a great achievement.

I raised the problem of the large number of children and the deficiency of child psychiatrists in the Middle East. I discussed this issue with Donald and asked him to develop an association belonging to IACAPAP in our region. He was supporting me financially from Telefono Azzuro and psychologically to make the dream a reality. The EMACAPAP was declared at Sharm El Sheikh in February 2000 where 17 representatives from the Middle East signed this declaration. Donald was so supportive of the association and was doing his best to communicate with several agencies to help the EMACAPAP to develop training courses to help in the development of child psychiatrists in the region.

Since 1995 Donald was doing his best to develop liaison between IACAPAP and Egyptian Child Mental Health personnel. The first conference was in 1996 where very eminent guest professors from Yale and Harvard universities visit

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ed' Alexandria and conducted this training for five days. I think he had a vision to help developing countries to develop this recent speciality.

Even when Donald was ill, he was very active to reply to my emails with a lot of wisdom and vision and a lot of hope to support me to continue this work. I learned a lot from him-how to communicate, how to be patient. I really miss a great teacher. Donald was very concerned to do collaborative work. Even in his illness, he was very keen that the SAHA collaborating work was done. I think this was his vision for a big institute like the Child Study Center should be in contact with all the world. Early December this year, his vision became a reality where this collaborating work will be done by about ten countries.

The first time I met Donald at the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatrists Congress at San Antonio, I think it was 1995, I was impressed by the great respect and love from his colleagues and friends. I was impressed, too, by the support of Phyllis and Joseph and how they were backing Donald to show the good of the happy American family. He was very kind and supporting to anybody. I felt that when I didn't know Donald well and I asked him for advice regarding my son. He invited me and my son to come to his hotel and gave me advice. He was so kind when I went to New Haven for the first time. Although I know how busy he was, his hospitality was great. He accompanied me, with Phyllis, to see the different buildings of Yale University, and he invited me to go to the Jewish Student Club, where I was very impressed by how modest and humble he was, to chat and discuss with the students the many issues and to share their opinions. Every time I visited New Haven, I stayed at Donald's house. I really felt that I was living at home. Donald was very Mediterranean; he loved his family, he was very religious, he liked to have his children and grandchildren around him. Phyllis is a very dedicated wife and mother, helping her children and grandchildren in many things. I felt that Donald's family are like Egyptian families with the strong bonds and ties between the family.

DONALD COHEN: THE FRIEND

AND THE MAN

Arturo Grau, M.D. Professor of Child Psychiatry

University of Chile

September 14,1997 seems a distant date. It was the day when our dear and remelTlbered friend, Donald Cohen, arrived for his first and only time in Santiago de Chile. It was also the first and only time I personally saw him. Four years in someone's life may be a lot or a little time, but I remember that day as if it were today.

Chile was organizing its first Latin American Child Psychiatry Congress. We felt optimistic about it. We hoped to achieve the best congress of psychiatry ever held in our country. Among our guests were some of the best child psychiatrists in the world, a fact that allowed us to offer an excellent scientific programme. Besides, we intended to create a link between Latin American Psychiatry and that of the USA, the country where Leo Kanner gave birth to modern Child Psychiatry and from where the best investigations, publications and teachings came. Donald, President of IACAPAP at the time, resumed all the above mentioned activities and excellence. He was in charge of the Congress.

That distant and sunny morning, we met in the lobby of the hotel after his long and tiring trip from the US. He seemed relaxed and happy as though he were on vacation. I was surprised at his simplicity, his dynamism, gentlemanliness and prudence. He made me laugh with his sympathy and joviality in spite of the little I understood of that fast English he spoke. Now I think I probably understood too little of that excessively respectful language he spoke, moreover when re-reading after his death, last year's emails in which he never openly mentioned his illness, but which he hinted at with the use of conditionals.

Going back to our first meeting, after greeting and thanking me for being invited to the congress, he presented me with a tray, which I now have in front of me, together with several pictures in which he appears smiling with my family and other members of the congress. At that time, with two or three sentences,

he quickly organized a system of communication to help us with the organization of tasks during his stay, planned presentations and other activities, and the trip they would undertake to get to know the flowering desert of Atacama and the Moon Valley.

It seemed to me to be a brainstorming of ideas, intellect and altruism. Somehow when listening to him, he made me remember Holden Caulfield, the hero created by J.D. Salinger, as he took his mission in psychiatry in such a simple and honest way as the adolescent protagonist of this nove-"and I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff. I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going, I have to come out from somewhere and catch them, That's all I'd do all day."

His intelligence and talent impressed all of us, as well as his informality in dressing. In a country used to an excessive formality, his matching of suits and tennis shoes wasn't a habitual sight. All the colleagues that have expressed their pain at his death have remembered this aspect: he looked so special is his tennis shoes... !

At the congress, everyone admired his conferences. All recognized that he exposed with clarity, certainty and originality the essential findings in his experience and research in long and productive years with children. Impact of trauma and violence, Tourette's Syndrome, therapy in children and its evaluation, protective factors of risk in infant development, were the topics presented in Santiago de Chile.

We all lamented his short stay, but he promised to come back soon. When back in New Haven, he wrote letters of thanks for the invitation to the congress. I still keep them and I do so because in them is expressed all one would expect of a true friend: generosity, loyalty and affection. I am deeply touched when I read, in his characteristic black letters in Spanish: Arturo, bravo, muchas gracias!

After his visit, we kept corresponding. The year after the congress, he invited my son, Arturo, and his friend, Andres Horlacher, both medical students. He was an exceptionally kind host, making them feel protected as at home. He personally took care of even minute details, as a true father. Proof of his care is when 12

he had to travel abroad for some time during this period and he informed me that both young men were now under the care of his family. For these two young men it was a valuable, formative experience that has marked their lives.

Many tirnes we intended to meet: during the APA in Israel, in Montevideo, in Washington. In one of his last messages, equally full of optimism, he told me we would meeting in New Orleans for the APA, and he thought that if the timing was adequate, he would go to the congress in Hawaii. For some reason, we would never meet again, although my personal experience is inverse to that reality. I feel as if we had never stopped seeing each other. That same destiny has made it that we will meet again in Chile after his death. His son-in-law, Andres Martin, will bring his portrait on April 24, 2002, to preside over the seminars and meetings of the Child Psychiatry Department of the Calvo Mackena Hospital in Santiago de Chile. That room will be named after him: Donald J. Cohen, M.D., Professor of Child Psychiatry, Pediatrics and Psychology. It will be our humble and deeply felt homage and thankfulness for having met that religious, family loving, great doctor and professor, loyal and generous friend named Donald, who was above all, an exceptional human being.

SPECIAL MEMORIES

Mohamed Hasib EI-Defrawi, M.D. Professor and Chairman of Psychiatry Suez Canal University, Isnlailia, Egypt

I have known Dr. Cohen for many years from his published research in the area of movement disorders and related neuropsychiatric psychiatric syndromes. As far as I recall, I attended a one-day symposium in the Harvard School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, in May 1982. The title of the meeting was, "Movement Disorders," but Professor Cohen?s presentation was a very interest-ing, simple, extremely clinical with illustrative case examples mixed with psychodynamic and neurobiology that was impressive. At that meeting, we spoke with him, and I was very much

impressed with his ability to listen and show personal concern to whatever question and/or remark he was asked.

Donald had the unique skill of getting those around him to be involved with his thoughts and indulged with him into the true nature of the phenomenon. He also had the ability to express his own (and our) limits in a highly modest attitude. At that time, I was doing research at Nathan S. Kline Psychiatric Research Institute at Rockland, NY. I was interested in the topic and later, I found that he was not only an excellent researcher but also a clinician and investigator. I sometimes felt that this man is a team of clinical investigators by himself. At that time, I admired his knowledge and his ability to transmit it to listeners and scholars. To me, the only explanation was that he was a dedicated, hard working human. After moving to Columbia, I read about the activities of IACAPAP, and there he was a leader, a dedicated international figure and an excellent model for young and junior psychiatric clinicians. I felt he must have a lot of energy, goals, time or even dreams to fulfill. The other explanation that came to me was that he must have a sincere commitment to spread the concept of child mental health concepts around the world with a vision that it is possible if there was Togetherness. He has always been hopeful and has an enthusiastic spirit. I started looking into his research and scientific contributions in this area. At that time, I had to give my grand round presentation. I decided to present clinical case illustrations of a seven-year-old boy with a stimulant-induced tic and a 14year-old girl with neuroleptic-induced tardive dyskinesia. Again, I went to the literature and his findings, neurobiological explanations. His published documentation of Tourette's Syndrome and its manifestations were among the material I have and presented as handouts. Since then, I have followed his published papers closely after I went back to Egypt in 1985 to start my career in child and adolescent psychiatry and even after that.

In February 2000, I had the chance to meet him again, this time face to face, and to have another look at his work and concerns. He has been building IACAPAP with colleagues from around the world, but he has a determination to bring people (child psychiatrists) together, in spite of their differences. It seems that he

believed it is possible. I felt, more than ever before, that he was getting younger as the years passed because he had hope and dreams. Professor Cohen had kept his ability to individualize his attention to each one of his listeners and to convey his caring attitude. He appeared free of bias to any particular psychiatric school in spite of his psychoanalytical training, background, neurobiological interests and research. He has his own school of thought and logic that appeared very close to all of us. Above all, he had kept his modesty and inspirations. He gave that regional meeting at Sharm ElSheikh, south Sinai-Egypt, a great deal of his personal attention, care, dedication and perseverance to be a good example of formation of coalition between neighboring countries meeting to initiate the East Mediterranean Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions (EMACAPAP). He was determined to make a success of that meeting. He had extended his help and was offering his personal communication network to provide our developing EMACAPAP with the needed financial support. He made a great effort to give that part of the world some of his contributions.

He was a peaceful, great man who believed that all the people in the world have the right to live in peace, and all the children of the world should have better mental health care. He believed that in spite of all our differences in the region, whether cultural, religion, race, interests and even political systems, we have a more common human core. And so do children and adolescents who have the right for a better mental health care. Professor Donald Cohen was a great man. His contributions will stay with us, and he will always be remembered.

A SPECIAL TRIBUTE Serenella Gagliardi, M.D.

Fondi, Italy

My name is Serenella. I am a young Italian Doctor in Psychology. In the summer of 2000, I went to the USA for a sixmonth specialization training in child abuse and neglect as well as emergency

13

management techniques. I was given the great chance to work with Professor Cohen thanks to the collaboration and friendship existing between him and Professor Caffo, President in Italy of Telefono Azzurro.

The loss of Professor Cohen has saddened me immensely. He was very demanding and expected a lot from people. but once he saw commitment and values in a person, he was able to give gratification and always acknowledge good work. ~1e \tvas very open when we first met and didn't have a problem with my very poor English. In fact, he bravely invested in me. offering me the chance to do hands-on work with children with high exposures to trauma in their family or community. During my six months in New Havzn, my main occupation became to closely follow the Child Developmental Community Policing Program (CD-CP). This project is the courageous and innovative result of a partnership between the Child Study Center and the New Haven Department of Police Services, and aimed to prevent and mitigate the effects of exposition to violence on children and adolescents through collaborative training, consultation and the provision of direct clinical services. I literally participated in "ridealongs," driving in police cars with officers on regular patrol. Not bad for a young doctor from abroad, fresh of her degree and just landed in the US!

Professor Cohen addressed me to the guidance of the project's director, Steven Marans, Ph.D., and to the tutoring of Jean Adnopoz, to whom I feel very grateful, both from a professional and personal point of view. They taught me a great deal, trusting me and sharing with me a lot of precious knowledge. In addition, Professor Cohen didn't hesitate in involving me with the work of his staff and in providing me with a lot of highly informative written material on the subject I followed. He allowed me to be involved firsthand in various other national and international projects like YICAPS and the SAHA (conducted by Mary SchwabStone). All these projects truly faced, surveyed, studied, assessed, examined and explored all aspects of violence in the children's world, and worked hard on prevention, mitigation, care, support, and collaboration within the community for improvement.

I \\'rote all this not because I feel the 14 need to talk about me, but because it is

through telling what Professor Cohen saw me capable of doing that I can speak about his amazing personality; so full of inspiration on his work and so full of trust for his collaborators. I remember being stricken by his dedication to his work. He truly loved what he was doing until the last days, and it was impossible to work with him without feeling the same enthusiasm. I come from Italy, a country where family values are very important. I couldn't help noticing how much love he had for his family as welL and how his work would never deprive his family of his presence, care and attention.

The day I left to go back to Italy, Professor Cohen gave me great joy coming to my leaving party. When we bid goodbye, he told me that he knew it was going to be hard, but that he was convinced I would be able to work together with him and everyone else I knew in the Child Study Center. He added that he strongly hoped I would be back again. I was profoundly touched: Professor Cohen did indeed count on living as long and strong as his work. And counted on me.

Well. He's not there anymore, and I can't tell him this, but today is the 29th of October and in a week's time, I will be taking a test for a scholarship to go back to Yale University. I'll remember him as a very devoted husband, father, grandfather, and a great master who obtained the obtainable from his students. He had a great respect for us as we respected him. I shall miss him a lot. This memory of being together is very precious, and I think that we will get much comfort from this.

"GOOD FRIEND AND

OUTSTANDING LEADER ••• "

....A MEMORIAM TO DONALD J. COHEN FROM CHINA

Yi Zheng, M.D. Director, Beijing Child and Adolescent

Mental Health Center Professor, Capital University of

Medical Science

I was deeply grieved by the unbelievable message that Donald J. Cohen-a brilliant scholar and a humane, sensitive and thoughtful leader-died on October 2,

2001. As soon as I got the information, I was shocked and all of the things in my mind were his voice, his smile, and his kindly face. He couldn't leave-the children all over the world need him. He would be always alive in our mind.

"Good Friend and Outstanding Leader" is the best evaluation of a director and mentor from his student in China. Widely recognized as the leading American child psychiatrist of his generation, Dr. Cohen was also known as a good friend of the Chinese people. He helped to promote child psychiatric services in China. He visited China ten years ago. He invited and supported Chinese child psychiatrists to attend the international meeting. As President of the International Association of Chil

to the first-day publishing ceremony in Beijing. He also planned to visit China as Visiting Professor of Capital University of Medical Science in 2001. He had known he suffered an illness at that time.

Now The Yale Companion for Parents is already translated to Chinese and will be published. The position of Visiting Professor of Capital University of Medical Sciences has been approved.

Although Dr. Cohen passed away, he leaves behind a great legacy. The finest of its kind and a major contributor to advancing the well-being of children in all of the world. This Yale program has been widely admired and replicated in China. The research of autism (POD) and Tourette's Disorder, child development programs for the poor and disadvantaged children, school intervention programs, psychotherapy, and developmental psychopharmacology have been paid more attention in China.

What we discovered was Donald's courage in facing the frailties of the body. He did not slow down. He did not give up. He sought to live in the moment. In the end, he ran out of time for that. He will be remembered most for his dedication, his intelligence, his smile, his selfdeprecating humor, and for his extraordinary gifts as an organizer, clinician' teacher, mentor, and friend.

Dr. Cohen will be alive in my mind.

DONALD J. COHEN: A TRIBUTE Kuo-tai Tao, M.D.

China

Donald Cohen did his best to promote the Chinese children's mental health. Tao Kuo-Tai, M.D., member of the WHO Expert Advisory Panel on Mental Health and Former Director of WHO collaborating Center (Nanjing) in child mental health. Dr. Cohen visited China several times, where he would be happy to visit Chinese families and their children. He loved them earnestly. Also he learned that most of their mental health needs were unmet and was seriously concerned. Dr. Cohen first visited China in 1984 and gave an excellent and stimulating lecture on the new concept and modern approach of childhood schizophrenia at the APA and CPA joint sympo

sium and I was honored to be his interpreter. Later we met many times in China and in MCAP and IACAPAP academic meetings and became intimate friends. He knew me as one of the leading persons in the field of child mental health in China. He usually gave me immediate response to my ideas and plans and gave me strong support and cooperation.

Several issues are especially worth mentioning:

1. Dr. Cohen worked together with Dr. Myron Belfer to organize the processes to admit the Chinese Society of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry to be a formal and national member of IACAPAP. Then CSCAP was organized and has more international exchanges and cooperation.

2. He cooperated with me to edit the first Chinese Textbook of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry which was published in 1999 and he considered it was an historic event. In his foreword, he introduced the basic theories and laid down the principle of developing child mental health in the Chinese context.

3. Dr. Cohen joined with Dr. Helmut Remschmidt, President of IACAPAP, who wrote a letter of commendation of my achievement to the Chinese government. It helped to raise their awareness of the importance of child mental health and the well-being of our new generation.

4. He strongly supported my idea of creating the first Chinese journal of child and adolescent mental health. He even provided $6000-10,000 as an initiate fee and he would chair the professional advi~ sory board. Drs. Belfer and Remschmidt also gave quick response to participating on the board.

5. Dr. Cohen was pleased to provide Dr. Ke Xiao-yan one year of research fellowship at the Yale Child Study Center.

6. As I had hoped, he joined me, Dr. Belfer and Dr. Remschmidt to establish a foundation in China for the promotion of child mental health. Dr. Cohen, in response to my letter, always expressed that he was honored to work with me. He had done his best to promote the development of child mental health in China.

We will always be grateful for his earnest concern about Chinese chil